Merry Christmas! That was fun to hear! Good end to a good day of celebration for us. Special Christmas service at church this morning. Drove 65 miles to Pierre, SD to see the Christmas Trees decorating our state Capitol. It is fabulous. Organizations, individuals, schools, Cancer and many other illness survivor groups, family farms and ranches, day care groups, and many more sponsors provide a tree and decorate it in corridors on three or more floors of the building. One floor has special activities for kids to make decorations. Otherwise, it is just a proceed at your own pace event running roughly from Thanksgiving to Dec. 26. There are days when music from individuals and groups is performed in the rotunda area. I think there wasn't any today, at least not at the time we were there. Making it even more fun was that our grandson's family, including the two great grand daughters were there, so we joined with them to see the wonder of it all through the eyes of three and five year olds!!!! It was especially exciting for them when we could look up and see trees on multiple levels when on the lowest floor and then go up the elevator to see them up close. Sure were lots of family groups taking it all in today!

We ended the outing by going to that grandsons house where there were three generations of us exchanging gifts.....and having some lively games of 'catch the ball' and stalking with flashlight beams and/or foam 'bullets' hopefully tiring the little ones enough to get a good night of sleep before the big day tomorrow.

We will be at the other grandsons newly remodeled home they just moved into, celebrating the day with most of our family and his wifes' family and a friend who drove up from New Mexico for the celebration. Three of our four kids will be there, and the fourth one will be with us to celebrate the New Year, so a great holiday season for us in our 'old age'! Adding to the special Blessings of Christmas is the celebration of the 125th anniversary of our ranch with the production of a commemorative album of 'then and now' photo's of activity and people, pastures, and cattle taken over the years put together by a granddaughter in law, with some help from my spouse and other family members.

A couple of locals thought the two guys got a lot of money from the photo and had it hid in their barn. They beat them trying to get them to tell where the money was. One died and the other spent the rest of his life in a nursing home due to the injuries